• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Optimal Crewing is Not Minimal Crewing: The Need for Human Systems Integration

NAVSEA News Wire

Release Date: 9/26/2003

By By Greg Maxwell, Deputy Commander, Human Systems Integration Directorate, Naval Sea Systems Command (SEA 03); J. Robert Bost, Technical Director, (SEA03)

Washington -- Admiral Vernon E. Clark, Chief of Naval Operations, has outlined a challenging vision, Sea Power 21, which defines the transformed Navy of the 21st Century. One of the key elements of his vision is the Sea Warrior initiative, which is to "serve as the foundation for warfighting effectiveness by ensuring the right skills are in the right place at the right time." In future, Navy crews will be "streamlined teams of operational, engineering, and information technology experts who collectively operate some of the most complex systems in the world." Admiral Clark concludes that "optimal manning policies" will enable the Navy to reduce crew sizes substantially, an important objective considering that today's manpower costs contribute some 60% to the total ownership cost of our ships.

The challenge is to make this philosophy more than just words and to confront the diverse institutional and cultural impediments within the service to such change. Whether addressing the need to optimize the crews of our in-service ships or to determine the right-sized crews of our future ships, optimal manning is neither minimal manning, nor even reduced manning. Optimal manning is the right-sized crew necessary to carry out mission requirements.

The Right Wall?

Two fundamental principles shape virtually every Navy ship or weapon systems program. The first is that if engineers can "bound a system," the problem can be solved. The system--any system--is more often than not viewed as a complex combination of hardware and software, and with a solid engineering understanding of that system in hand, the Navy can apply the resources to solve the problem.

The second principle is from Steven Covey: "Have your ladder leaning against the right wall." The irony is that even though program managers, resource sponsors, and engineers successfully bounded the problem and solved it, the second principle comes into play--they did not have their "ladder leaning against the right wall." More often than not, they solved the wrong problem. While they might have solved a hardware or a software problem, they did not realize that the system is actually hardware, software, and people.

HSI for the Future Navy

Human Systems Integration is a specialized, formal engineering discipline, which is essentially the marriage of system engineering and behavioral science. It places Sailors at the heart and the start of every new system. The primary concerns are for the safety, performance, and interactions of humans with the equipment that they operate and maintain. With that in mind, the fundamental objective of human systems integration is to influence system design and engineering such that human capabilities and limitations are explicitly taken into account to ensure that the resulting system will have the highest and safest performance at the lowest total ownership cost (TOC). The recently established NAVSEA HSI Directorate is tasked with measuring the degree to which Sailors are considered in system development and for certifying that Sailor performance fully informs system design at the earliest stages of acquisition.

Numerous initiatives have contributed to current readiness goals that have seen at-sea billet gaps reduced from more than 17,000 in 1998 to less than 4,000 in 2002. For example, "new technologies and great deckplate leadership in USS Milius (DDG-69) produced innovative shipboard watchstanding practices, reduced ship's manning requirements, and focused Sailors on their core responsibilities," Admiral Clark has noted. The result was a reduction of 53 billets. A PEO Ships DDG-51 reduced manning study has also provided good insight into assuring that the right number of people are aboard--no more, no less--to accomplish the mission. Indeed, the right number of people, not the minimal number, is the critical criterion. Too many, and costs cannot be afforded; too few, and missions cannot be performed well.

In short, only by bounding the problem and having our ladder leaning against the right wall--embracing and institutionalizing an HSI-focused philosophy that touches upon virtually every element of the service--will the Navy be able to win the battle for people and also ensure that our future warships and other platforms can go in harm's way and emerge victorious. The Sailor is a key element of the CNO's Sea Power 21 vision. Making sure that we have the right number of the right people in our ships' crews is critical for both the fleets of today and tomorrow.